


Debris

by Owl_songs



Category: Hannibal (TV), Stoker (2013)
Genre: Crossover, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Fix-It, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Milkshakes, Murder Family, Non-Graphic Violence, Road Trip, Series Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-26
Updated: 2013-07-26
Packaged: 2017-12-21 10:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/899470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owl_songs/pseuds/Owl_songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>India Stoker picks up a hitchhiking Abigail Hobbs while the former is on her cross country murder spree and the latter is just trying to get as far as possible from Baltimore.  The two fall into talking and find they have more in common than either would have guessed from a first glance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Debris

Garrett Jacob Hobbs had always cautioned his daughter about the dangers of trusting strangers. By Abigail’s reckoning, however, she was probably the most frightening thing anyone was likely to come across on the road, so it was easy to shrug off her late father’s warnings when a young woman in a convertible pulled aside in response to Abigail’s extended digit and offered to give her a ride.

“Where are you headed?” she asked.

“Far from here,” the driver replied. “North, probably.”

“Okay,” Abigail said, and slid into the passenger seat, tossing her backpack into the back and buckling her seatbelt. “Thanks for the lift.”

They drove in comfortable silence for several miles, neither of them in any particular mood to speak. Finally, Abigail stole a sideways glance at the young woman in the driver’s seat, and said, “You know who I am, don’t you?”

The other woman smiled, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. It was a curiously humorless expression on her taut, pretty face. “I do.”

“You’re not frightened to invite a killer into your car?” Abigail asked. She was careful to keep her voice pitched so that nothing but her genuine curiosity crept into it, and the smallest amount of candid bitterness. It would never do to have this woman think that Abigail was comfortable with that identity.

The other woman looked at her then, that peculiar smile still playing about her thin lips. “You don’t recognize me?”

Abigail wracked her memory. Something about the other woman was familiar, but she hadn’t been able to pin it down. “Stoker,” she said suddenly, with a start of recognition. The young woman’s face had been all over the papers for a few weeks, reports altering between calling her a cold-blooded killer and the latest in a string of victims. Either way, all the reports had agreed that India Stoker was missing. “Isn’t your mother looking for you?”

“Not if she knows what’s good for her,” India replied. After a long pause, during which Abigail wondered whether they would spend the entire drive without talking, India continued.

“You hunted with your father, didn’t you? That’s why everyone thought you helped him.”

“We hunted elk.” 

India gave her a wry smile, as if to say, _but that’s not all you hunted, is it? _Instead, she said, “My father used to take me hunting. I liked birds.”__

“My father would have liked you.” And it was true: India and Abigail shared a striking resemblance. They were like doppelgangers out of some old poem, with eyes the same blue-grey of well water, locks dark as ebony, and skin as white as chalk.

“I imagine he would have.” They drove in silence for a time, India looking straight ahead at the empty road, Abigail gazing at the passing fields of soy. At length, India spoke again. “Family is strange, isn’t it?”

Abigail checked a laugh. “How do you mean?”

“My uncle thought he was in love with me. My mother hated me. My father feared me, or what I might do, as much as he ever loved me. And yet they have made me who I am.”

Abigail nodded slowly, one hand toying absently with her scarf. It was cotton, soft enough not to scratch her throat when she swallowed and said, “I think I understand what you mean.”

India arched one perfect brow in inquiry.

“I was very close to my father,” Abigail elaborated. “And after he died, I was very close to his killers. I can no longer tell which of them has had the most influence on the person I’ve become.”

Her words seemed to draw a smile from India, who took a moment to smooth a hand over her russet skirt. Abigail noticed for the first time how poorly the belt India wore fit her. It was clearly meant for a man, and unlike the rest of the woman’s clothing, did not look as though it had been tailored to within an inch of its life. A year ago Abigail would not have known any better, but life with Hannibal had taught her many things. Such as how quickly and irretrievably a silk blouse would stain if not treated immediately, Abigail thought, noting the few scattered brown spots on the sleeve closest to her and along the neckline. The sight of blood did not distress her as much as she would have expected. Abigail let her eyes wander over the other woman, finally resting on a pair of pointed-toe crocodile skin pumps that seemed at odds with the rest of her attire.

“Nice shoes,” Abigail said. India’s eyes flashed with delight and a soft pink flush rose to color the pale flesh of her cheeks, diffusing like a single drop of blood in a bucket of milk.

“Thank you. They were a gift.”

“From your father?”

“No. My uncle. He made a good mentor,” India said fondly. “He was deranged, of course, and utterly deluded with regards to my feelings towards him, but I was sorry to see him go.”

“You didn’t love him back?” Abigail asked, skeptical and shrewd.

“Of course not,” India lied smoothly. “Did _you _love your father’s killers?”__

“Of course not,” Abigail replied, but as she spoke a small smile crept along the edge of her red mouth to answer India’s sharp, slight smirk. If she told India that she might have answered that question differently not so long ago, Abigail thought, the other woman would have understood.

“You hungry?”

“I could kill for a milkshake.”

Half an hour later, as the pair sat across from one another in a battered booth in an even dingier diner, Abigail watched India’s chocolate and vanilla milkshake as it swirled inexorably in the steel decanter. The remains of her own drink had melted to the sides of the empty glass, sticky and pink as splattered viscera.

“So letting me hitch a ride was—what, a professional courtesy?” She asked, swiping a finger along the ridged edge of the glass and licking it clean. Strawberry had always been her favorite.

“One prodigy to another,” India affirmed.

Abigail chuckled low in her throat, not a little sardonically. “Thank you, India.”

“You’re welcome, Abigail.” India took a long, slow sip of her milkshake. “You don’t have to feel guilty, you know. For being yourself.”

“That’s not how most people would see it.”

“We are not most people.”

Abigail tilted her head, considering. “No, I suppose not.”

“Sometimes you have to do something bad to stop yourself from doing something worse.” India murmured, her low voice reverberating with a sort of quiet surety, a serene sincerity learned by rote.

Abigail thought fleetingly of her father, of girls who had shared her face but not her fate, and of the demands of survival. She thought of the knife tucked carefully away in her backpack, of the way it had felt as it sliced through the tender flesh of her ear, of the way it had felt later tucked between Hannibal’s ribs, and of the many reasons she had had for choosing to leave that life behind.

“Sometimes that can be a good thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by amandaskankovich's post on tumblr that sparked more an a few plot bunnies, calling for "A Hannibal/Stoker crossover fic where India Stoker picks up Abigail Hobbs on her cross country murder spree where beloved serial killer mentors/family members/love interests/FATHERS are discussed and the subject of hunting and oh my god 'Sometimes you have to do something bad to stop yourself from doing something worse'."
> 
> Obviously, this needed to be written. I obtained amandaskankovich's consent to filch her idea (which is pretty much perfect) and ran with it. It's my first foray into writing for either fandom, although by no means my first time writing fan fiction. It's been a while, though.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


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